Telia, Nokia and Intel bring 5G to the factory floor

2018-04-12

In one of the first live 5G trials for the manufacturing industry, Telia and Nokia in collaboration with Intel showcase how 5G, cloud and data center infrastructure will pave the way for new digital industrial processes.

The trial shows how companies can use ultra-low latency and high-bandwidth capabilities of 5G with video analytics to enhance and transform production in a manufacturing environment. In the trial at the Nokia factory in Oulu, Finland, a video feed of a process on an assembly line was monitored and analyzed with a video analytics application from Finnish startup Finwe.

Real-time analysis and trouble shootingWith an Intel 5G Mobile Trial Platform, the video feed was carried over a trial 5G radio access network implemented by Nokia on the 28 GHz frequency band and further over Telia’s fiber network to the company’s data center in Helsinki. Thanks to the fast network connections and low latency, the video analytics application was able to immediately alert the assembly line operative of any inconsistencies in the process so they could be corrected in real time to ensure high-performance, reliability and quality. The data center functionality was also brought to the edge of the network, closer to the location, with Nokia’s Multi-access Edge Computing platform powered by Intel to reduce latency even further.

New processes and insights in manufacturingThanks to superfast 5G and fiber, the quality and efficiency of industrial processes like the trial case can be improved with real-time cloud services located in data centers.

“Under our ‘5G Finland’ initiative we are working with companies such as Nokia to accelerate the next industrial revolution in Finland. The trial shows how real-time data can be used with 5G, cloud services and data centers to create new processes and ways of working in manufacturing and other industries,” says Janne Koistinen, Director of 5G Program, Telia Finland.

Marc Rouanne, president of Mobile Networks at Nokia, said: “Nokia’s 5G capabilities allow operators such as Telia to leverage machine learning and automation by opening up network data and intelligence. As we continue to deliver machine learning capabilities in Nokia’s ReefShark chipsets and develop advanced algorithms, we will further enhance our radio performance allowing customers to take advantage of new business opportunities in the 5G and IoT world.”

Caroline Chan, vice president and general manager, 5G Infrastructure Division, Network Platforms Group, Intel said: “Open, flexible and software-defined infrastructure plays an important role in enabling greater throughput and enhanced capabilities of 5G networks. The Intel Xeon Scalable Processor family and the Intel 5G Mobile Trial Platform provided the foundation for this Nokia and Telia trial, which brought to life the potential for 5G to transform processes and deliver new insights in manufacturing.”

VIDEO 5G trial at Nokia’s factory Oulu

5G is the next technological revolution5G is expected to improve the throughput of mobile networks by more than 20 times and the capacity up to hundred times compared to current networks. The revolutionary aspect is the ability to connect a huge number of devices connected to the network and the possibility to enable services that require ultra-low latency and extreme reliability. 5G will enable for example autonomous driving, new concepts in e-learning and e-health and new types of critical industrial processes.